Michael Shuman

Michael Shuman, "attorney and Director of the Institute for Economic Empowerment and Entrepreneurship for the Village Foundation; Fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies, Washington, DC."

"Michael Shuman, an attorney and economist, is Vice President for Enterprise Development for the Training & Development Corporation (TDC) of Bucksport, Maine. He has written, co-written, or edited seven books, including most recently, The Small-Mart Revolution: How Local Businesses Are Beating the Global Competition (Berrett-Koehler, 2006) and Going Local: Creating Self-Reliant Communities in the Global Age (Free Press, 1998). In recent years Shuman has been promoting local-economy concepts through a variety of projects, including: creating a small-business venture capital fund in New Mexico; launching a community-owned company in Salisbury (MD) called Bay Friendly Chicken; organizing university-government-business collaborations in St. Lawrence County (NY) and in the Katahdin Region (ME) to study opportunities for import replacement; analyzing the impact of devolution in the former Soviet Union for the United Nations Development Programme; preparing a buy-local guide and coupon book for Annapolis (MD); developing a web site (CommunityFood.com) to support marketing by family farmers; serving as a senior editor for a recently published Encyclopedia of Community; and building the Business Alliance for Local Living Economies (BALLE).

"He has written nearly one hundred published articles for such periodicals as New York Times, Washington Post, Nation, Weekly Standard, Foreign Policy, Parade, and The Chronicle on Philanthropy. His books and articles have explored people, practices, and policies in the fields technology, national security, citizen diplomacy, municipal foreign policy, entrepreneurship, philanthropy, and business development.

"Shuman received an A.B. with distinction in economics and international relations from Stanford University in 1979 and a J.D. from Stanford Law School in 1982. During these years he served as a columnist for The Stanford Daily, and organized and taught freshman writing classes on "Nuclear Power: Issues and Choices." He also held internships with Natural Resources Defense Council, California Energy Commission, Friends of the Earth, and Stanford Institute for Energy Studies.

"In 1982 he founded the Center for Innovative Diplomacy, which grew into an 8,000-member nonprofit organization that promoted global peace, justice, development, and environmental protection through direct citizen and city participation in international affairs. Through his leadership, CID helped create PeaceNet (a global computer network ultimately acquired by Earthlink), published a quarterly Bulletin of Municipal Foreign Policy, and mobilized nearly 3,000 local elected officials on behalf of various foreign policy issues.

"He then became a Fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies for two years and Director for six years. Among his accomplishments were launching a new program in peace and security, starting the Social Action and Leadership School for Activists, strengthening the 2 Institute's links with the Progressive Caucus on Capitol Hill, and putting the institution on a strong financial footing after two decades of deficit spending.

"From 1998 to the present, Shuman worked as a contractor, sometimes independently and sometimes through the Green Policy Institute and Community Ventures (both projects of the Tides Center), with economically disadvantaged communities to create sustainable small businesses. He ran the Village Foundation's Institute for Economic Empowerment and Entrepreneurship, which worked primarily with African-American young me in U.S. inner cities. He worked with the Kellogg Foundation to support low-income farmers. And he prepared the platform for the New Mexico gubernatorial campaign of Native American activist Russell Means.

"Shuman has appeared on numerous television and radio shows, such as the Lehrer News Hour and NPR's "Talk of the Nation," and is a periodic commentator on NPR's "All Things Considered." He has given an average of a talk a week for 20 years, including invited lectures or paid consultancies in eight countries, 26 cities, and at 27 universities.

"In 1988 he received a public service award from the international relations department of San Francisco State. In 1980 he won First Prize in the Rabinowitch Essay Competition of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists on "How to Prevent Nuclear War." Between 1987 and 1990 he was a W.K. Kellogg National Leadership Fellow. He is also a member of both the State Bar of California and the District of Columbia Bar."


 * Advisory Board, Earth Action
 * Advisory Board, E. F. Schumacher Society
 * Advisory Board, People-Centered Development Forum
 * Senior Fellow (2006), Transnational Institute